On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
useful to their fellow-citizens . But what has been the fate of unmarried women ? If not wealthy , and large fortunes rarely devolve to women , if not endowed with a strength of mind and character that falls to the lot of few , the situations into which the majority of them sink , when unsupported and unprotected by male relatives , ( and even by these they are often plundered and
oppressed , ) is indeed pitiable ; and even for their very misfortunes instead of sympathy they meet with insult . And why is this ? Because they are allowed no reputable productive means in which they might employ their time and talents , and by independence enforce respect . If created merely to blossom , to fade , and to be trampled under feet , why has Nature , that does nothing in vain , endowed them with reason , with capacities and powers
similar to those of man ? Has Providence given them talents merely to fold in a napkin ? Are they unaccountable and unresponsible for their use or abuse of such talents ? Can they benefit society in no other way than by increasing its numbers ? Are they , because less corporeally robust than man , incapable of any productive labour , of any useful exercise of the intellectual powers ? This will not be affirmed , because experience has proved the contrary .
Why then not lay open to female exertion and industry more liberal sources , more various and respectable modes of occupation ? If woman must be accomplished in the arts , for which by her taste and sensibility she is eminently fitted , why fritter awa y her time and talents by exacting from her a smattering of all , instead of inciting her to pay attention to one only , and thus by concentrating her powers to invigorate and render them really productive ? Woman wants only opportunity and encouragement to
rival man in everv elecrant . in everv useful art : but she is rnrt >)\ 7 rival man in every elegant , in every useful art ; but she is rarely , if ever , trained as a professor , but merely as an amateur . Where nature has denied genius to reach to eminence in art , yet a steady undiverted attention to one pursuit will rarely fail of producing some degree of excellence . How many male artists procure a respectable provision for themselves and families by instructing youth in their art . Why should not female youth be taught exclusively or chiefly by females ? Surely , both in schools and
private families , they are the more proper instructors ? Not as g overnesses , having a smattering of every branch of knowledge or of art , and a proficiency in none : but let them , as do the other sex , maintaining an independent home , instruct their pupils at their own houses , or in the several schools in which they may be placed by their friends . By women so prepared and trained , men would soon be superseded , as they ought to be , in the education
of females . Many branches of trade and commerce should also be thrown open to women in a manner that should render them respectable . Several of the bazaars have set an excellent example , by em-
Untitled Article
On Female Education and Occupations . 4 D 7
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1833, page 497, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2618/page/57/
-